Part 45

KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1520-1573), Scottish politician, was the eldest son of Sir James Kirkcaldy of Grange (d. 1556), a member of an old Fifeshire family. Sir James was lord high treasurer of Scotland from 1537 to 1543 and was a determined opponent of Cardinal Beaton, for whose murder in 1546 he was partly responsible. William Kirkcaldy assisted to compass this murder, and when the castle of St Andrews surrendered to the French in July 1547 he was sent as a prisoner to Normandy, whence he escaped in 1550. He was then employed in France as a secret agent by the advisers of Edward VI., being known in the cyphers as _Corax_; and later he served in the French army, where he gained a lasting reputation for skill and bravery. The sentence passed on Kirkcaldy for his share in Beaton's murder was removed in 1556, and returning to Scotland in 1557 he came quickly to the front; as a Protestant he was one of the leaders of the lords of the congregation in their struggle with the regent, Mary of Lorraine, and he assisted to harass the French troops in Fife. He opposed Queen Mary's marriage with Darnley, being associated at this time with Murray, and was forced for a short time to seek refuge in England. Returning to Scotland, he was accessory to the murder of Rizzio, but he had no share in that of Darnley; and he was one of the lords who banded themselves together to rescue Mary after her marriage with Bothwell. After the fight at Carberry Hill the queen surrendered herself to Kirkcaldy, and his generalship was mainly responsible for her defeat at Langside. He seems, however, to have believed that an arrangement with Mary was possible, and coming under the influence of Maitland of Lethington, whom in September 1569 he released by a stratagem from his confinement in Edinburgh, he was soon "vehemently suspected of his fellows." After the murder of Murray Kirkcaldy ranged himself definitely among the friends of the imprisoned queen. About this time he forcibly released one of his supporters from imprisonment, a step which led to an altercation with his former friend John Knox, who called him a "murderer and throat-cutter." Defying the regent Lennox, Kirkcaldy began to strengthen the fortifications of Edinburgh castle, of which he was governor, and which he held for Mary, and early in 1573 he refused to come to an agreement with the regent Morton because the terms of peace did not include a section of his friends. After this some English troops arrived to help the Scots, and in May 1573 the castle surrendered. Strenuous efforts were made to save Kirkcaldy from the vengeance of his foes, but they were unavailing; Knox had prophesied that he would be hanged, and he was hanged on the 3rd of August 1573.

See Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_, edited by T. Thomson (Edinburgh, 1827); J. Grant, _Memoirs and Adventures of Sir W. Kirkaldy_ (Edinburgh, 1849); L. A. Barbé, _Kirkcaldy of Grange_ (1897); and A. Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (1902).

KIRKCUDBRIGHT (pron. _Ker-kú-bri_), a royal and police burgh, and county town of Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 2386. It is situated at the mouth of the Dee, 6 m. from the sea and 30 m. S.W. of Dumfries by the Glasgow & South-Western railway, being the terminus of a branch line. The old form of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit, from the Gaelic _Cil Cudbert_, "the chapel of Cuthbert," the saint's body having lain here for a short time during the seven years that lapsed between its exhumation at Lindisfarne and the re-interment at Chester-le-Street. The estuary of the Dee is divided at its head by the peninsula of St Mary's Isle, but though the harbour is the best in south-western Scotland, the great distance to which the tide retreats impairs its usefulness. Among the public buildings are the academy, Johnstone public school, the county buildings, town-hall, museum, Mackenzie hall and market cross, the last-named standing in front of the old court-house, which is now used as a drill hall and fire-station. No traces remain of the Greyfriars' or Franciscan convent founded by Alexander II., nor of the nunnery that was erected in the parish of Kirkcudbright. The ivy-clad ruins of Bomby castle, founded in 1582 by Sir Thomas Maclellan, ancestor of the barons of Kirkcudbright, stand at the end of the chief street. The town, which witnessed much of the international strife and Border lawlessness, was taken by Edward I. in 1300. It received its royal charter in 1455. After the battle of Towton, Henry VI. crossed the Solway (August 1461) and landed at Kirkcudbright to join Queen Margaret at Linlithgow. It successfully withstood the English siege in 1547 under Sir Thomas Carleton, but after the country had been overrun was compelled to surrender at discretion. Lord Maxwell, earl of Morton, as a Roman Catholic, mustered his tenants here to act in concert with the Armada; but on the approach of King James VI. to Dumfries he took ship at Kirkcudbright and was speedily captured. The burgh is one of the Dumfries district group of parliamentary burghs. On St Mary's Isle was situated the seat of the earl of Selkirk, at whose house Robert Burns gave the famous Selkirk grace:--

"Some ha'e meat; and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we ha'e meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit."

Fergus, lord of Galloway, a celebrated church-builder of the 12th century, had his principal seat on Palace Isle in a lake called after him Loch Fergus, near St Mary's Isle, where he erected the priory de Trayle, in token of his penitence for rebellion against David I. The priory was afterwards united as a dependent cell to the abbey of Holyrood. DUNDRENNAN ABBEY, 4½ m. S.E., was, however, his greatest achievement. It was a Cistercian house, colonized from Rievaulx, and was built in 1140. There now remain only the transept and choir, a unique example of the Early Pointed style. Tongueland (or Tungland), 2½ m. N. by E., has interesting historical associations. It was the site of a Premonstratensian abbey built by Fergus, and it was here that Queen Mary rested in her flight from the field of Langside (May 13, 1568). The well near Tongueland bridge from which she drank still bears the name of the Queen's Well.

KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE (also known as the STEWARTRY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT and EAST GALLOWAY), a south-western county of Scotland, bounded N. and N.W. by Ayrshire, W. and S.W. by Wigtownshire, S. and S.E. by the Irish Sea and Solway Firth, and E. and N.E. by Dumfriesshire. It includes the small islands of Hestan and Little Ross, which are utilized as lighthouse stations. It has an area of 575,565 acres or 899 sq. m. The north-western part of the shire is rugged, wild and desolate. In this quarter the principal mountains are Merrick (2764 ft.), the highest in the south of Scotland, and the group of the Rinns of Kells, the chief peaks of which are Corscrine (2668), Carlins Cairn (2650), Meikle Millyea (2446) and Millfire (2350). Towards the south-west the chief eminences are Lamachan (2349), Larg (2216), and the bold mass of Cairnsmore of Fleet (2331). In the south-east the only imposing height is Criffel (1866). In the north rises the majestic hill of Cairnsmuir of Carsphairn (2612), and close to the Ayrshire border is the Windy Standard (2287). The southern section of the shire is mostly level or undulating, but characterized by much picturesque scenery. The shore is generally bold and rocky, indented by numerous estuaries forming natural harbours, which however are of little use for commerce owing to the shallowness of the sea. Large stretches of sand are exposed in the Solway at low water and the rapid flow of the tide has often occasioned loss of life. The number of "burns" and "waters" is remarkable, but their length seldom exceeds 7 or 8 m. Among the longer rivers are the Cree, which rises in Loch Moan and reaches the sea near Creetown after a course of about 30 m., during which it forms the boundary, at first of Ayrshire and then of Wigtownshire; the Dee or Black Water of Dee (so named from the peat by which it is coloured), which rises in Loch Dee and after a course mainly S.E. and finally S., enters the sea at St Mary's Isle below Kirkcudbright, its length being nearly 36 m.; the Urr, rising in Loch Urr on the Dumfriesshire border, falls into the sea a few miles south of Dalbeattie 27 m. from its source; the Ken, rising on the confines of Ayrshire, flows mainly in a southerly direction and joins the Dee at the southern end of Loch Ken after a course of 24 m. through lovely scenery; and the Deugh which, rising on the northern flank of the Windy Standard, pursues an extraordinarily winding course of 20 m. before reaching the Ken. The Nith, during the last few miles of its flow, forms the boundary with Dumfriesshire, to which county it almost wholly belongs. The lochs and mountain tarns are many and well distributed; but except Loch Ken, which is about 6 m. long by ½ m. wide, few of them attain noteworthy dimensions. There are several passes in the hill regions, but the only well-known glen is Glen Trool, not far from the district of Carrick in Ayrshire, the fame of which rests partly on the romantic character of its scenery, which is very wild around Loch Trool, and more especially on its associations with Robert Bruce. It was here that when most closely beset by his enemies, who had tracked him to his fastness by sleuth hounds, Bruce with the aid of a few faithful followers won a surprise victory over the English in 1307 which proved the turning-point of his fortunes.

_Geology._--Silurian and Ordovician rocks are the most important in this county; they are thrown into oft-repeated folds with their axes lying in a N.E.-S.W. direction. The Ordovician rocks are graptolitic black shales and grits of Llandeilo and Caradoc age. They occupy all the northern part of the county north-west of a line which runs some 3 m. N. of New Galloway and just S. of the Rinns of Kells. South-east of this line graptolitic Silurian shales of Llandovery age prevail; they are found around Dalry, Creetown, New Galloway, Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright. Overlying the Llandovery beds on the south coast are strips of Wenlock rocks; they extend from Bridgehouse Bay to Auchinleck and are well exposed in Kirkcudbright Bay, and they can be traced farther round the coast between the granite and the younger rocks. Carboniferous rocks appear in small faulted tracts, unconformable on the Silurian, on the shores of the Solway Firth. They are best developed about Kirkbean, where they include a basal red breccia followed by conglomerates, grits and cement stones of Calciferous Sandstone age. Brick-red sandstones of Permian age just come within the county on the W. side of the Nith at Dumfries. Volcanic necks occur in the Permian and basalt dikes penetrate the Silurian at Borgue, Kirkandrews, &c. Most of the highest ground is formed by the masses of granite which have been intruded into the Ordovician and Silurian rocks; the Criffel mass lies about Dalbeattie and Bengairn, another mass extends east and west between the Cairnsmore of Fleet and Loch Ken, another lies N.W. and S.E. between Loch Doon and Loch Dee and a small mass forms the Cairnsmore of Carsphairn. Glacial deposits occupy much of the low ground; the ice, having travelled in a southerly or south-easterly direction, has left abundant striae on the higher ground to indicate its course. Radiation of the ice streams took place from the heights of Merrick, Kells, &c.; local moraines are found near Carsphairn and in the Deagh and Minnoch valleys. Glacial drumlins of boulder clay lie in the vales of the Dee, Cree and Urr.

_Climate and Agriculture._--The climate and soil are better fitted for grass and green crops than for grain. The annual rainfall averages 45.7 in. The mean temperature for the year is 48° F.; for January 38.5°; for July 59°. The major part of the land is either waste or poor pasture. More than half the holdings consist of 50 acres and over. Oats is the predominant grain crop, the acreage under barley being small and that under wheat insignificant. Turnips are successfully cultivated, and potatoes are the only other green crop raised on a moderately large scale. Sheep-rearing has been pursued with great enterprise. The average is considerably in excess of that for Scotland. Blackfaced and Cheviots are the most common on the high ground, and a cross of Leicester with either is also in favour. Cattle-breeding is followed with steady success; the black polled Galloway is the general breed, but Aryshires have been introduced for dairying, cheese-making occupying much of the farmers' attention. Horses are extensively raised, a breed of small-sized hardy and spirited animals being specifically known as Galloways. Most of the horses are used in agricultural work, but a large number are also kept for stock; Clydesdales are bred to some extent. Pig-rearing is an important pursuit, pork being supplied to the English markets in considerable quantities. During the last quarter of the 19th century the number of pigs increased 50%. Bee-keeping has been followed with special care and the honey of the shire is consequently in good repute. The proportion of woodland in the county is small.

_Industries._--The shire ranks next to Aberdeen as a granite-yielding county and the quarries occupy a large number of hands. In some towns and villages there are manufactures of linen, woollen and cotton goods; at various places distilling, brewing, tanning and paper-making are carried on, and at Dalbeattie there are brick and tile works. There is a little ship-building at Kirkcudbright. The Solway fishery is of small account, but salmon fishing is prosecuted at the mouth of certain rivers, the Dee fish being notable for their excellence.

The only railway communication is by the Glasgow & South-Western railway running from Dumfries to Castle Douglas, from which there is a branch to Kirkcudbright, and the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire railway, beginning at Castle Douglas and leaving the county at Newton Stewart. These are supplemented by coaches between various points, as from New Galloway to Carsphairn, from Dumfries to New Abbey and Dalbeattie, and from Auchencairn to Dalbeattie.

_Population and Government._--The population was 39,985 in 1891 and 39,383 in 1901, when 98 persons spoke Gaelic and English. The chief towns are Castle Douglas (pop. in 1901, 3018), Dalbeattie (3469), Kirkcudbright (2386), Maxwelltown (5796) with Creetown (991), and Gatehouse of Fleet (1013). The shire returns one member to parliament, and the county town (Kirkcudbright) belongs to the Dumfries district group of parliamentary burghs, and Maxwelltown is combined with Dumfries. The county forms part of the sheriffdom of Dumfries and Galloway, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Kirkcudbright. The county is under school-board jurisdiction. There is an academy at Kirkcudbright, high schools at Dumfries and Newton Stewart, and technical classes at Kirkcudbright, Dalbeattie, Castle Douglas and Dumfries.

_History._--The country west of the Nith was originally peopled by a tribe of Celtic Gaels called Novantae, or Atecott Picts, who, owing to their geographical position, which prevented any ready intermingling with the other Pictish tribes farther north, long retained their independence. After Agricola's invasion in A.D. 79 the country nominally formed part of the Roman province, but the evidence is against there ever having been a prolonged effective Roman occupation. After the retreat of the Romans the Novantae remained for a time under their own chiefs, but in the 7th century accepted the overlordship of Northumbria. The Saxons, soon engaged in struggles with the Norsemen, had no leisure to look after their tributaries, and early in the 9th century the Atecotts made common cause with the Vikings. Henceforward they were styled, probably in contempt, _Gallgaidhel_, or stranger Gaels (i.e. Gaels who fraternized with the foreigners), the Welsh equivalent for which, _Gallwyddel_, gave rise to the name of _Galloway_ (of which Galway is a variant), which was applied to their territory and still denotes the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and the shire of Wigtown. When Scotland was consolidated under Kenneth MacAlpine (crowned at Scone in 844), Galloway was the only district in the south that did not form part of the kingdom; but in return for the services rendered to him at this crisis Kenneth gave his daughter in marriage to the Galloway chief, Olaf the White, and also conferred upon the men of Galloway the privilege of marching in the van of the Scottish armies, a right exercised and recognized for several centuries. During the next two hundred years the country had no rest from Danish and Saxon incursions and the continual lawlessness of the Scandinavian rovers. When Malcolm Canmore defeated and slew Macbeth in 1057 he married the dead king's widow Ingibiorg, a Pictish princess, an event which marked the beginning of the decay of Norse influence. The Galloway chiefs hesitated for a time whether to throw in their lot with the Northumbrians or with Malcolm; but language, race and the situation of their country at length induced them to become lieges of the Scottish king. By the close of the 11th century the boundary between England and Scotland was roughly delimited on existing lines. The feudal system ultimately destroyed the power of the Galloway chiefs, who resisted the innovation to the last. Several of the lords or "kings" of Galloway, a line said to have been founded by Fergus, the greatest of them all, asserted in vain their independence of the Scottish crown; and in 1234 the line became extinct in the male branch on the death of Fergus's great-grandson Alan. One of Alan's daughters, Dervorguila, had married John de Baliol (father of the John de Baliol who was king of Scotland from 1292 until his abdication in 1296), and the people, out of affection for Alan's daughter, were lukewarm in support of Robert Bruce. In 1308 the district was cleared of the English and brought under allegiance to the king, when the lordship of Galloway was given to Edward Bruce. Later in the 14th century Galloway espoused the cause of Edward Baliol, who surrendered several counties, including Kirkcudbright, to Edward III. In 1372 Archibald the Grim, a natural son of Sir James Douglas "the Good," became Lord of Galloway and received in perpetual fee the Crown lands between the Nith and Cree. He appointed a steward to collect his revenues and administer justice, and there thus arose the designation of the _Stewartry_ of Kirkcudbright. The high-handed rule of the Douglases created general discontent, and when their treason became apparent their territory was overrun by the king's men in 1455; Douglas was attainted, and his honours and estates were forfeited. In that year the great stronghold of the Thrieve, the most important fortress in Galloway, which Archibald the Grim had built on the Dee immediately to the west of the modern town of Castle Douglas, was reduced and converted into a royal keep. (It was dismantled in 1640 by order of the Estates in consequence of the hostility of its keeper, Lord Nithsdale, to the Covenant.) The famous cannon Mons Meg, now in Edinburgh Castle, is said, apparently on insufficient evidence, to have been constructed in order to aid James III. in this siege. As the Douglases went down the Maxwells rose, and the debateable land on the south-east of Dumfriesshire was for generations the scene of strife and raid, not only between the two nations but also among the leading families, of whom the Maxwells, Johnstones and Armstrongs were always conspicuous. After the battle of Solway Moss (1542) the shires of Kirkcudbright and Dumfries fell under English rule for a short period. The treaty of Norham (March 24, 1550) established a truce between the nations for ten years; and in 1552, the Wardens of the Marches consenting, the debateable land ceased to be matter for debate, the parish of Canonbie being annexed to Dumfriesshire, that of Kirkandrews to Cumberland. Though at the Reformation the Stewartry became fervent in its Protestantism, it was to Galloway, through the influence of the great landowners and the attachment of the people to them, that Mary owed her warmest adherents, and it was from the coast of Kirkcudbright that she made her luckless voyage to England. Even when the crowns were united in 1603 turbulence continued; for trouble arose over the attempt to establish episcopacy, and nowhere were the Covenanters more cruelly persecuted than in Galloway. After the union things mended slowly but surely, curious evidence of growing commercial prosperity being the enormous extent to which smuggling was carried on. No coast could serve the "free traders" better than the shores of Kirkcudbright, and the contraband trade flourished till the 19th century. The Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 elicited small sympathy from the inhabitants of the shire.

See Sir Herbert Maxwell, _History of Dumfries and Galloway_ (Edinburgh, 1896); Rev. Andrew Symson, _A Large Description of Galloway_ (1684; new ed., 1823); Thomas Murray, _The Literary History of Galloway_ (1822); Rev. William Mackenzie, _History of Galloway_ (1841); P. H. McKerlie, _History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway_ (Edinburgh, 1870-1879); _Galloway Ancient and Modern_ (Edinburgh, 1891); J. A. H. Murray, _Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland_ (London, 1873).

KIRKE, PERCY (c. 1646-1691), English soldier, was the son of George Kirke, a court official to Charles I. and Charles II. In 1666 he obtained his first commission in the Lord Admiral's regiment, and subsequently served in the Blues. He was with Monmouth at Maestricht (1673), and was present during two campaigns with Turenne on the Rhine. In 1680 he became lieutenant-colonel, and soon afterwards colonel of one of the Tangier regiments (afterwards the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regt.) In 1682 Kirke became governor of Tangier, and colonel of the old Tangier regiment (afterwards the Queen's Royal West Surrey). He distinguished himself very greatly as governor, though he gave offence by the roughness of his manners and the wildness of his life. On the evacuation of Tangier "Kirke's Lambs" (so called from their badge) returned to England, and a year later their colonel served as a brigadier in Faversham's army. After Sedgemoor the rebels were treated with great severity; but the charges so often brought against the "Lambs" are now known to be exaggerated, though the regiment shared to the full in the ruthless hunting down of the fugitives. It is often stated that it formed Jeffreys's escort in the "Bloody Assize," but this is erroneous. Brigadier Kirke took a notable part in the Revolution three years later, and William III. promoted him. He commanded at the relief of Derry, and made his last campaign in Flanders in 1691. He died, a lieutenant-general, at Brussels in October of that year. His eldest son, Lieut.-General Percy Kirke (1684-1741), was also colonel of the "Lambs."

KIRKEE (or KIRKI), a town and military cantonment of British India in Poona district, Bombay, 4 m. N.W. of Poona city. Pop. (1901), 10,797. It is the principal artillery station in the Bombay presidency, and has a large ammunition factory. It was the scene of a victory over Baji Rao, the last peshwa, in 1817.